


Hunter

by fleshlycherry



Category: Firefly
Genre: Community: 20weeks, F/M, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-26
Updated: 2011-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleshlycherry/pseuds/fleshlycherry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne anticipates his moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunter

**Author's Note:**

> The only ficlet I ended up writing for 20weeks on Livejournal. Challenge prompt: anticipation. Originally posted May 19, 2005.

Jumping down the last three rungs, Jayne tosses the double handful of money from his pockets onto the unmade bed, coins and paper all mixed together, before quickly shucking off his boots and leaving them beside the ladder. His Mama always said that a gentleman took off his shoes when entering a home, and though Jayne weren’t really a gentleman, nor was this really a home, Jayne almost always did what his Mama told him to.

Plopping down on the edge of his bed he glanced quickly around the small space. No, weren’t really a home at all, but it would be one day. He’d have to take down his girls, keep ‘em in the trunk in the corner, they wouldn’t like it there in the dark and they’d be a little harder to get to if he needed them quick, but that’d be the way she’d want it so it’d get done. Maybe she’d put up a fancy picture or something. He’d have to take down his ladies too, the cheap, glossy paper will rip when he tries, but he shrugs to himself, he hasn’t really looked at them in a long while anyway.

Fishing the coins from between the folds of the blankets he starts dividing the money into piles. One for Mattie and his Mama, the biggest one; one for Vera and the other girls, for oil and bullets; one for his own self, clothes and the extra bit of fun you had to pay for when you hit a planet. There were only a few small coins left and looking down at them he almost smiled, just a bit. Some jobs, there weren’t enough left after everything else was set aside, but today had been the end of a good run. He fumbled around under his bed for the small box pushed far underneath, behind the dust bunnies his Mama would have blistered his hide for. Opening it, he caught the familiar whiff of coins, cool metal, and under that the soft scent of strawberries. It had been real nice of lil’Kaylee to give him the box when she was finished with it and one day he was going to repay the favour.

‘Cause the day was soon to come when she’d realize that the Doc weren’t nothing but that Christmas present that you begged and pleaded and schemed for, and when you got it, just wasn’t as shiny as you’d thought it shoulda been. He drops the coins in and shoves the little box back under the bed, a little closer to being full. Not quite, but almost. He just has to wait a little bit longer, let things run their natural course as the Shepard had said, and when they do, well, then he’d be ready with strawberries and frilly dresses if that’s what she wants and the understanding (he almost pities the Doc sometimes) of how to go about winning a woman like Kaylee. He just has to sit patient, and wait.

He can do that. He’s a hunter.


End file.
